This invention relates, generally, to flexible packaging devices, and more specifically to sterilizable, sterility maintaining, peelable packages for sterile products.
One of the major advances in modern health care technology has been the mass production of presterilized medical instruments and supplies, packaged in disposable, sterility maintaining flexible pouches and envelopes. The use of such disposable packaging eliminates the need for resterilization of the medical devices contained therein by hospitals, doctors, or medical personnel when use of the sterile product is desired. Consequently, the use of such packages has been widespread. One of the problems associated with such packages, however, is how to open them without having the sterile product contact a torn edge, a portion of which would be on the outside of the package and therefore contaminated.
Previous attempts to overcome these difficulties, such as those shown in the patents of Spees, U.S. Pat. No. 3,053,385; Lonholdt et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,315,802; Armentrout, U.S. Pat. No. 3,547,257; Rohde, U.S. Pat. No. 3,186,628; Hermanson et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,123,210; Lasky, U.S. Pat. No. 3,926,311; Link, U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,651; Powell, U.S. Pat. No. 3,332,549 and Kurtz, U.S. Pat. No. 3,256,981, have met with varying success. However, many of the peelable packages disclosed in the listed prior patents require expensive laminations or coatings on one or more layers of the package. Additionally, experience has shown that the peelability of such packages is irregular due to variations in coating density, film thickness, sealing temperatures and sealing pressure.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide sterile packages which effectively seal the sterile products contained within against contamination;
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a sterile package with reliabile peelability characteristics; and
It is an object of the invention to provide such packages in a form which is easy and inexpensive to manufacture.